By C. Jewel Garcia
When looking for a production team most people look for team players. They look for some new faces with exceptional talent and some reliable old teammates. They look for some creative differences. However, people often overlook a key component of the highest performing teams.
According to Why Project Networks Beat Project Teams teams function at their best when team members reach out beyond the team for help to find solutions to problems. This may be confusing at first. To some this may sound like simply expanding a team, but it is not.
Team members usually work together to solve problems or accomplish tasks. However, they traditionally only looked for ideas, strategies, and solutions from within the team bubble. Team networks are more successful and efficient then just teams. A team network is comprised of all the members of a team and all their connections. The team members then go to each other and outside the team to help find solutions, ideas, and strategies. When looking at the network level instead of only at the team level more possibilities can be proposed or found because there are more resources available. In actuality, according to Look Beyond the Team: It’s About the Network networks alone in some situations can function better than teams do.
What does this mean for independent filmmakers? Should they give up on making teams and work completely through networks? The answer is of course no. Filmmaking requires a team, or a group of individuals who are working closely together to accomplish a set task, which in this case is making a brilliant piece of art. Networks alone are too unsolidified and detached to accomplish this task. Nevertheless, networks can and should be employed more often to find creative solutions.
Networks can be considered from the beginning of the filmmaking prosses when trying to assemble a team. Filmmakers should look for qualified candidates but also consider those candidates network connections. This can help in many areas from finding locations to shoot to finding distribution.
After production starts, networks can be looked at when trying to find creative solutions for filming. For example, how to accomplish a special effect that seems impossible. Perhaps someone’s network connection can refer the team to a prop artist that no one in the team new. Or perhaps someone’s network connection can propose a filming technique which no one on the team was aware existed.
Finally, network connections can help with fundraising and sponsorship. Large networks can help get the word out and mobilize people to donate to a project. Targeted networks can help get the word to key financial players who can sponsor a project.
Networks are a key component to any independent filmmaker’s project. These are just a few examples of when networks can be useful. They can and should be leveraged whenever possible to help a production.
After all this praise a filmmaker may ask what the catch is to leveraging networks. The truth is there is no catch to leveraging networks to complete a film, but that is if the network is actually being leveraged. In some cases, the external network can start exhibiting pressures on individual members of a team in an effort to have an overbearing influence on the film. This is a problem on its own. It is a bigger problem if team members waver to external pressures in a way that compromises team trust or the production.
According to When Collaboration Fails and How to Fix It the problem of members being to malleable do to a large amount of external pressures is called priority overload. When Collaboration Fails and How to Fix It explains, “Once a group becomes overloaded in this way, team members lose sight of their mission and highest priorities — and as a result, their most important deliverables can be forgotten or ignored.” In the case of film, the most important deliverable is the film itself. This problem can occur when there is too much emphasis on going to the network and when personal and cultural values and connections become overwhelming. In film, on top of putting strain on a production, it has the potential of compromising a production and even causing the production to be uncompleted.
Obviously, leveraging networks can be an incredibly useful tool for filmmakers, but how does one leverage networks without becoming priority overloaded? The solution is setting boundaries of what team members can and cannot help their network connections with and prioritizing network requests and inputs on a production. When leveraging networks there will always be reciprocity expected. Members of the production team should be able to see when request are actually encroaching on the film and be able to turn down the help from a network connection. This is the key to being able to utilize networks without becoming priority overloaded.
Leveraging networks is key to independent film productions. It helps when assembling a production team. Looking to the project network instead of only to the project team can help ensure completion on a production and will definitely help ensure efficiency on a production. The project network can help with things during preproduction, production, post-production, and film-festivals and distribution. The team, however, should be cautious in order to avoid priority overload. (If priority overload occurs the film may never be completed.) They should set boundaries and prioritize request and input in an effort to assure priority overload does not occur. If boundaries and priorities are set than every opportunity to leverage networks should be used to assure efficiency and completion of production.
Cummings, J & Pletcher, C. (2011). Why project networks beat project teams. MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(3), 74-80. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-project-networks-beat-project-teams/
Katzenbach, J.R. (2012). Look beyond the team: it’s about the network. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2012/03/look-beyond-the-team-its-about
Carboni, I. & Cross R. (2020). When collaboration fails and how to fix it. MIT Sloan Management Review. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/when-collaboration-fails-and-how-to-fix-it/